About Me

Originally a geologist by training, I now work as a museum professional. My passion is old photographs, the photographers who took them, the equipment and technologies they used, the people and scenes in the photos, and the stories behind them.

Sunday, 6 June 2010

Dating photos with the aid of trade directories

I've recently been having another detailed look at an album in my non-family collection that I've been researching off and on over the course of several years. Within the album is a group of cabinet portraits taken at studios in Detroit, Michigan during the last two decades of the 19th Century. In an attempt to date the photos more accurately than my knowledge of clothing fashions would permit, I turned to city/trade directories, a good selection of which are now available on both Ancestry and Footnote. Sadly my month-long subscription to the latter is at an end, and I don't use it often enough for my own family research to really warrant a renewal. However, I have been able to build up a suprisingly detailed history of the photographic studios operating in Detroit. It's a valuable lesson to me as to how much it is sometimes possible to narrow down dates using this one method alone.

Perhaps the first in the series, timewise, is this enchanting portrait of a young woman from the studio of J.E. Watson of 41 & 43 Monroe Avenue. The style of card mount design is typical of those produced in the mid-to late 1870s, but the portrait itself could be as late as the early 1880s.

The next pair of photographs in the group are vignetted head and shoulders portraits of a young woman and a young man, both taken at the studio of Bracy, Diehl & Co. of 35, 37, 39 (or 35-39) Monroe Avenue. My initial estimate from clothing styles is that these two were taken at roughly the same time, perhaps in the early to mid-1880s.

Although the text and colour of the ink on the front of each is similar, the colour of the card mounts is different, as are the intricate designs on the reverse.

This effect of this charming portrait of two young children, possibly brother and sister, has in my view been somewhat lessened rather than enhanced by the slightly asymmetrical diamond-shaped frame. The studio here is that of Bracy & Gibson of 246 Woodward Avenue, and the introduction of the finely scalloped, bevelled and gilded edges to the card mount suggest to me a date of the mid- to late 1880s, or perhaps early 1890s.

This vignetted portrait of a rather wistful young woman by Diehl, Ladd & Co. of 246 Woodward Avenue is of a similar style to several of the others in the group, and could be from any time in the 1880s or 1890s. Unfortunately little of the woman's dress is showing, although the hairstyle, bodice and collar are perhaps more of an 1890s style than 1880s.

Finally, there are three similar cabinet card portraits, all of young boys, by the studio of Angell & Diehl at 246 Woodward Avenue, only two of which are shown above. They are difficult to date but could be from any time in the late 1880s or early to mid-1890s. The style of the one on the right, of the younger child, feels to me more from the early 1890s.

A pattern is immediately apparent in the photographers and studio addresses: Diehl, Bracy, Monroe Avenue and Woodward Avenue are all common to two or more of the sets shown above. Peter Palmquist's comprehensive bibliography Photographers: A Sourcebook for Historical Research makes no mention of a collated resource for Detroit photographers, so I turned to the city directories. While these have proved a very handy, if somewhat sporadic, resource for my research into the studio photographers of Derbyshire, England, I haven't a great deal of experience in using them for other locations. However, Footnote.com has a very useful complete collection of digitised city directories for Detroit , Michigan from 1861 until 1923. Although time consuming to search, with a little patience one can eventually build up a decent time sequence, as I did.

Although the last Diehl entry in this list is for an "Andrew J," it seems likely this is a misprint for "Ambrose J." I discovered recently that Ambrose J. Diehl is the common factor between all of these Detroit photographs, and this was due to the simple fact that he was married to the sister of the owner of the photograph album. It seems likely that the album owner, her husband and children, as well as her sister and her children, were all photographed by Ambrose Diehl at one time or another. The Diehls did indeed move to Grand Rapids in the early 1890s, where they are shown living in Hastings Street in the 1900 census. They returned to Detroit around 1905-1906, where Ambrose continued to work as a photographer, but apparently as an employee rather than owner of his own studio.

Going back to the list taken from the city directories, I was then able to construct the following detailed timeline for Ambrose Diehl.

Diehl sold business to Earle Photo Co. (inc. 31 Mar 1892) and moved to Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan

1893-1905

Worked as a photographer in Grand Rapids, status unknown

1906

Diehl employed as a photographer in studio of H.N. Imrie,

1907-1923

Worked as a photographer in Detroit, status unknown

Perhaps Ambrose Diehl was a particularly difficult person to work with, as each of his employment periods and partnerships never seemed to last very long. However, I have noticed that many of the other photographers in Detroit show similarly fluid employment/business histories, so it seems more likely that it was just a rather cut-throat business to be in. The great benefit for us is that the names and studio addresses of the card mounts can provide quite specific dates for the portraits.

The first portrait was therefore taken at Watson's Monroe Avenue studio, probably by Ambrose Diehl who was working there as a photographic operator from 1879 to 1880. Ella Wheeler née Winnett (1857-1924) married Byron C. Wheeler (1829-1891) at Blissfield, Lenawee County, Michigan in April 1878. Initially they lived in Grand Ledge in Eaton County, where their first son Maurice was born in July 1880, and it seems liklely that Ella had this portrait taken during a visit to her sister in Detroit, prior to the birth of Maurice. The hat is quite something!

Ella returned to her brother-in-law's studio, where he was now a partner, with her husband some three or four years later, probably at around the time they moved to New London in Huron County, Ohio. She would have their second son Walter in 1886. The pose is almost identical, and Ella's fascination with decorative hats has endured.

I believe that Ella's sister Lizzie Diehl sent her this portrait of her own two children around 1888, at which time Ella and her husband were running a saloon in New London. Ella had a second son Winnett, born in April 1888.

Ella returned to Ambrose's studio in 1891 for portraits of her two surviving boys, Maurice and Winnett. A third portrait with identical card mount from the album, shown below, appears to be of Lizzie's son Howard, then aged nine.

Ella's husband Byron died in April 1891, and after taking care of the saloon business Ella moved to live with her brother's in Montana around July. From the evidence of these photographs, taken c.1891 she may have gone there via her sister's in Detroit.

I was also able to find on the net several other photographs from the studios that Ambrose Diehl was associated with, and out of interest I've reproduced a selection of these here. Hopefully they will be of use to someone else trying to date a Diehl photo.

Thanks Patti. I should warn you, though, that this is a particularly good example of how it can work well. More often, you won't be able to pin dates down so precisely using this method, either because the information is unavailable, or because the photographer remained at the same address for many years. However, it is another useful tool in the toolbox!

The 'loose' piece of paper to which you refer was actually glued by the photographer to the back of the carte de visite so that it could be flipped over to protect the front surface.I'm not sure why people left them in situ once they were put into an album as, I do agree, they get in the way afterwards.Diana

Hi Diana - Thanks for your comment, which I think was meant to go on a different posting, but no matter. I'm aware of tissue covers, which you have described, and they are quite different from what I was referring to. The loose paper between the backs of the mounted photos was somewhat thicker, but not quite card. Regards, Brett

Hi Deb - I'm afraid there is no short answer to this question, I suppose because it depends on so many factors, including whether there are any other identifying names, locations or marks in the album. If there are none, then probably the chances are slim, but this is exactly what I will be trying to do with another album in my collection from Cleveland, Ohio, which I'm currently writing about here. It has a name on the back of one photograph, and that's it, but I'm hopeful that some day, it may be possible to discover who owned it. Then, perhaps, living descendants or family members may be tracked down, but it won't be an easy or quick process. The thrill, of course, is in the hunt.Regards, Brett